


Humbug

by candyflosskillr (Supertights)



Category: Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Christmas, Clones, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Gen, Happy Ending, Unconventional Families, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3450533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/candyflosskillr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spider-Man becomes involved in a rescue on Christmas Eve with some friends</p>
            </blockquote>





	Humbug

**Author's Note:**

> My exchange fic for Seasonal Marvels 2007-08. Recipient never replied so I assume it's shit but hey, it was my first ever story that I posted online with shaky fingers and shakier heart, it was beta read (by the lovely hbthomas), and it was longer than one thousand words which was my goal at the time, so I still consider it a win.

Peter Parker crouched on the edge of an old apartment building. Things were quiet but he suspected it was only because it was both snowing and Christmas eve. Even the bad guys sometimes had better things to do before Christmas.

He sighed, rubbed at his arms, and contemplated an early return home. Mary Jane would probably appreciate it.

An alarm went off somewhere nearby. Loud and insistent.

"I jinx myself, I really do. How could I even think for one minute that I'd be allowed to go home early to my wife, maybe have a hot dinner, a kiss under mistletoe. It had better not be a jolly fat man in a red suit," he grouched, shooting a web and swinging in the direction of the alarm.

He traced it to a warehouse storing medical equipment. He jumped free of the web line and landed near one of the skylights. No lights on inside. Standing over it, looking down through the glass, he could see the beams from two flashlights rapidly moving around in the darkness below.

"Gotcha."

Peter put his hand out to try the skylight's latch but his spider-sense flared as the window exploded from beneath, showering him in broken glass. He turned away to shield himself then quickly back to see two individuals running away from him, across the rooftop. One very tall, one the same height as him. Both were clad in black clothes and balaclavas. The tall one was carrying a briefcase.

"Wait for me, where'ya going guys--"

He sped after them but they were moving inhumanly fast. The edge of the roof was coming up but instead of slowing down they simply leapt from the edge of the warehouse to the next building over without pause.

He could've jumped after them but webbed instead and passed by the running figures to land in front of them with a flourish. Again, neither stopped, they split around him and ran off in different directions.

Peter looked after one, then the other. Then sighed loudly.

"Where's the respect? It's not like I can split in two here--"

He went after the tall one, chasing him for blocks. He lost sight of him only to catch up again a few minutes later. Footprints in the snow were no help since the guy didn't seem to leave any. Peter began to feel like he was being toyed with. It was definitely starting to irritate him. Then he lost the tall one near the waterfront.  
He swung upwards and landed on top of an office building overlooking the area. Scanning, he saw nothing until with a minute burst of spider-sense, he saw the slightly shorter guy turn up and disappear into a old boatshed, not much more than a crumbling ruin. He launched off the side of the office towards the boatshed, coming down lightly on the roof. Even so, it trembled under his weight then stabilised.

'If they didn't know I was here before, they do now,' he thought, dismissing it to perch upside down on a webline and look through a grimy snow-laced window. He wiped at it until he could see inside but there was nothing moving. He tried to open it finding it unlatched, and crept in stealthily.

It was dirtier inside than out, a layer of old dust, grime and bird excrement coated everything. Peter wiped the crap off his glove only to find something indescribable and probably worse wiped back onto it. "Geez, haven't these guys heard of housekeeping?" he asked to himself.

He leapt around the rafters quietly but his spider-sense didn't go off at all. Then he noticed the door on the ground floor near the end of the building. Standard, old, dirty like everything else but with security he'd only seen on the Avenger's mansion or Freedom Four Plaza, not in some run down glorified fishing shack. And there was slushy boot prints in front of the door.

"Interesting."

Peter studied it then tried to force it but the door didn't budge. He grunted. It had a palm reader. He contemplated it for a second. Placing his glove against it shouldn't work but he did it anyway. The lock clicked and the door swung open.

"Interesting. No, not interesting, weird. Hellooooo? Honey, I'm home," he called out. No one replied but the lights came on revealing a set of stairs leading down. "Security that looks killer but isn't. Doors that open by themselves. Stairs leading to imminent doom. This is way to easy--Whooooo."

He knocked the side of his head. "C'mon spider-sense, this is sooo clichéd, it has to be a trap." Nothing happened. Peter sighed. He was sighing a lot tonight. He wished he’d gone home to enjoy Christmas eve with MJ instead of choosing to be out playing some bizarre game with two strangely familiar bad guys.

Stopping on the stairs, he thought about it. Yeah, familiar. He'd seen their moves before. But where? He couldn't remember. "It'll come to me," he whispered to himself.

The stairs went down about two floors, at the foot of them was another door. This one had the same security but it had been left slightly ajar. More snow scuffed the floor. He put his gloved hand out and pushed gently. The door swung back. The room beyond was lit up. There was no way he was going to go unseen in there. The voice wasn't loud but it sounded like a shout in the silence.

"Come in, Peter Parker." Strangely, again it was a familiar voice.

Peter's spider-sense bleated apologetically. "Oh now you go off?" he grouched. "That's Spider-man and only if you've got eggnog and a warm fire." Peter walked through the door warily. "Kaine."

The tall man. Kaine's trademark costume was covered up by the black clothes and balaclava. "I wondered when you'd recognise me. Took longer than expected."

"Bah humbug to you too. Where's your pal?" Peter gave the room a quick once over but he couldn't see anything past empty clone vats and wall to wall medical equipment.

Kaine removed the balaclava. "Around."

"I'm assuming you wanted me to follow you. The breadcrumbs you laid on were a little thick for my liking but hey beggar, not chooser."

"That was the plan."

"So come on, who's your partner in crime? Electro? No wait, Black Cat? Lizard? Mysterio? What am I saying, his head would never fit a balaclava. Come on, you can tell me? Who is it?" Peter roamed the room, looking into and at everything.

"Good to see you, Pete."

Peter froze. The second voice had come from behind him, through the open door. No spider-sense again, so neither meant him any harm. He didn't dare turn around though, it was too incredible to be true.

‘Maybe I’m unconscious on some roof in the snow somewhere and I‘m slowly freezing to death, hallucinating in my last minutes?’ he thought. "Ben?" he croaked finally.

"In the flesh."

"How?"

Peter pulled up his mask so he could see properly and turned to see Ben shrug, the clone’s face was unmasked and he was wearing his old Scarlet Spider costume. "Kaine knows more than I do. He was here when it happened."

Peter spun back to look at Kaine. The bigger clone smiled. "The Jackal did something right even though none of us knew or even suspected. Ben and I were sending daily downloads from our memories and don't ask, because I haven't even worked out the science behind it. The paperwork is around here somewhere. The Jackal must've been tracking us that way for a long time until he abandoned this facility. It was a dump when I found it, the power was still on but it was pretty much torn apart. Anyway, when Ben died, I guess the last clone tank was activated based on his physical data and his last memory download was automatically uploaded into the new clone of the old clone. This all gives me a headache by the way--"

Ben grinned. "Downloads, uploads, it's all gibberish-- but hey, I'm back."

Peter grabbed him in a bear hug, holding back tears. "And I for one am glad of it, brother." He let go, and stood back to look at his clones. "So why all this hokey act to get me here?"

"We needed you to believe it was really us because-- well, we need your help. There's something that has to be fixed and only the three of us together can do it." A glint came to Ben's eye suddenly. "It’s got to do with OsCorp and something Norman Osborne did."

"Normie was a bad little boy again? Santa will not be visiting him this year either." Peter grinned, he felt lighter, as if a weight had shifted from his soul. "This is gonna be fun. Spidey couldn't have asked for a better gift." As he pulled his mask back down over his face, he didn't notice an odd look pass between the clones.

 

Kaine landed with a klump in the thick snow bank. He was still wearing his black clothing and had put the balaclava back on. Ben and Peter came down nimbly to the left and right of him.

"It's your plan, Kaine. What next?" asked Peter.

They were standing in front of a ten foot chain link fence that had his spider-sense blaring. 'Electrified for sure,' he thought. Beyond the fence was a building, like an office block but less interesting.

Kaine pointed at the office block. "That's only the tip of the iceberg. There's about ten sub basement levels. Normally the place would be crawling with scientists, lab techs and security but it's Christmas eve. Not even Norman Osborne can keep everyone at work tonight."

"It's a skeleton staff, I already checked earlier," said Ben.

"We'll enter through the front door."

Peter raised an eyebrow at the clone. "You sure that's the wisest course, buddy?"  
Kaine looked down at him. "Of course. I’ve been planning this for months. Watching, waiting. Tonight is ripe for an attack. There is one guard on reception, one roaming the entire sub basement levels and one in the security suite. The only other people in the building are the two lab techs on the floor we will be targeting and they will not fight us. There’ll be little resistance."

"Less talk, more action" Ben griped. "This has to be done before midnight."

Peter looked at him. "What? Why? We all turning into pumpkins at midnight or something?"

"Or something."

Kaine leapt the fence easily, followed quickly by Peter and Ben. They walked up to the door and with a kick, Kaine smashed it in. Peter groaned.

"Way to be stealthy there."

"Why bother, we’ll be in and out before the authorities can even get here, if they bother to call them at all. There's a five minute response window before the OsCorp security detail can even get a chopper off the pad at the main facility--"

Peter stared at Kaine. "Wow, you really did think this through."’

"Time. Wasting." Ben reminded them after dispatching the guard and dragging him out of sight.

"Yeah yeah. What next?"

He turned to look at Kaine but the big man was gone. He heard a crash and strangled scream from down a side hallway. "Oh man, I said no killing, Kaine!"

Kaine dragged the second guard from the security suite and dumped him next to the first guard. "He’s not dead, just bruised. Now we find the last guard." The three stood in front of a bank of screens scanning for movement.

"There." Ben pointed at a screen on the top row. Subbasement five. "That near the objective?"

Shaking his head, Kaine said, "No, the objective is on nine. Peter, can you take down the guard and meet us on nine?"

Peter flipped them a salute and took the stairs. "Again with the stairs," he grumbled but web-lined down to the fifth sublevel. The guard opened the door just as he released the line and came to land in front of it. His spider-sense went off at the same time. "Uh, howdy?"

The guard fumbled for his gun but Peter webbed him up quickly and rolled him back into the lab, propping him up on a chair.

"Okay, ninth sublevel." He jumped down and came through the door to find two lab techs tied up with computer cabling and webs.

"Merry Christmas," he said as he passed them looking for Ben and Kaine. They glared at him.  
The lab was set out in an open plan with a large clear box in the middle of the room. Work stations with monitoring equipment surrounded it. Kaine was standing in front of the box. His hands were un-gloved as he melted through the transparent wall. Ben grouched next to him.

"You're sure it won't trigger some silent alarm and release gas into the cell?"

“No. They want her alive. They'd take no chances."

Peter jumped up to stand on top of the box. Inside he could see a small child asleep. She was wearing Spongebob Squarepants pyjamas and was clinging to a teddy bear as big as she was.

"Who's the kid?" he asked. "Not some alien from outer space whose DNA was grafted onto human DNA and she's gonna start eating and killing people when she grows up right?"

Kaine looked up at him. "What?"

Ben patted his shoulder. "That's just Peter's weird sense of humour. You get used to it. No, Pete, she's yet another victim of Osborne. He had her stolen from her mother at birth and swapped for a dead baby."

Peter gritted his teeth. Another cruelty inflicted on someone by Osborne. "So this is a snatch and grab with a reunion tagged on for Christmas?"

Ben gave him a thumbs up. "That's the plan, Pete."

"But no alien hybrids?"

"No, Pete."

The little girl woke up, roused by all the noise and noticed Peter standing above her. She screamed. Ben pulled off his mask and waved at her through the glass. "Hey, hey there, look at me. I'm not scary."

"Well, I'm not technically scary either, Ben," grouched Peter as he jumped back down from the top of the box.

"I doubt she's ever seen anyone outside of a lab coat."

The tiny girl climbed down from the bed and came to stand on the other side of the glass in front of Ben. She looked up at Kaine, then Peter, then smiled shyly at the blond unmasked clone.

"Oh, she's a little heartbreaker," said Peter. "Bet she's got some alien in her."

"Yeah," replied Ben. Then he scowled at his progenitor. "I mean no, NO alien."

Kaine finally breached the box. He grabbed the edges and broke a section away to make a door in.

"All for Ben being the guy to go in and pick up the scary kid?" said Peter, raising his hand.

Kaine chuckled and raised his as well.

"Gee thanks, guys." He reached through the hole to pick her up.

The alarm went off and gas started to pump into the box. "I thought you said no alarm no gas--" muttered Ben as he lifted the girl out.

With a shrug, Kaine said, "You said silent alarm-- does that sound silent? Go, take her out of here. We'll deal with any security. Take the emergency exit off this level. We'll meet at the pre-arranged site later."

Ben ran from the room, holding the now wailing infant.

Kaine and Peter ran for the stairs. "Okay, running towards the bad guys, this is a good idea?" asked Peter.

"I had no idea you talked so much when you fight."

"Ouch! That hurt, Kaine. Right down deep where super-guys like us don't usually feel stuff or talk about it."

They fought through dozens of OsCorp's trained soldiers before fighting free of the non descript office building and disappearing over the fence and into the surrounding neighbourhood. During the escape, Peter lost sight of Kaine. He returned to the waterfront lab but neither clone had returned there. He checked the time. It wasn't yet midnight. 'Time enough to get home and score a kiss under the mistletoe from my wife,' he thought. 'The guys will contact me again, if they need to.'

The snow began to come down harder as he webbed his way home. When he got there, he found MJ asleep on the sofa in front of the television, she'd been watching a repeat of "It's a Wonderful Life" which was finishing. He pulled off his mask and kissed her cheek, slouching down on the sofa next to her. She groaned and rubbed her eyes.

"What time do you call this, Tiger? Aunt May went to bed hours ago."

He grinned. "To be fair, Aunt May does go to bed early though."

MJ swatted him playfully. "I'm wiped out. Going to bed, you coming?"

"Do I ever need a second invitation?" The he yawned widely.

Peter was out like a light seconds after climbing into bed. He woke up to a punch on the arm.  
"Peter!" whispered MJ. "There are people in the other room. I can hear them."

She pushed him out of the bed. His spider-sense hadn't gone off. Maybe he needed to see Reed about it. Too many times not going off lately. He heard a crash followed by whispered voices arguing. He crept to the door and peeked out. Two men were standing next to the Christmas tree looking at something under it.

"I've called the cops, they're on the way,” he said loudly. 'No sense in alerting them to the fact I'm Spider-man unless I have too,' he thought.

The two men fought each other to get out the window and were gone out into the snowy night.

"Weird." Peter leaned out of the open window to see where the two men had disappeared to but there was no sign of either. The light came on behind him as MJ and then Aunt May emerged from their rooms.

"Uh--Peter? There's something--new, under the Christmas tree,” said MJ in a strange tone.

"Don't burglars usually take things? Not leave them?" asked Aunt May.

Peter shut the window and locked it securely. "Okay, now what's new under the tree?" He looked down to see the child he'd recently assisted in rescuing, sleeping wrapped up tight in the Scarlet Spider's hoodie, under the tree.

"Uh--" he said, shocked.

"Ditto," added MJ.

"Whose child is this?" asked May. Her face tender as she looked down at the little girl. "She's beautiful."

"Okay, long story short--if I'm reading this situation right--she's ours."

MJ grabbed him by the shoulder and slapped him across the face. "Don't toy with my feelings, Peter. I won't stand for it."

He rubbed his cheek. "Firstly, OWWWW! Second, I'm telling the truth. Kaine and Ben--oh, yeah, Ben is alive--and I rescued her from an OsCorp lab. They've had her there since she was born."

Peter was suddenly overcome seeing MJ's face grow wet with tears. "Is it true, Pete? Is she really our little May?" He put his arm around her, pulling her close. They stood together, neither ready to wake the little girl.

"Yeah, MJ, that's what I've been trying to tell you--She's really our little girl, alive," he said gently.

"She looks like you."

He chuckled. "I was thinking she looked more like you, which is a good thing."

"I think she looks like both of you." May wore a smile that lit her face.

There was a knock at the window. Ben and Kaine clung to the wall outside, they waved and gestured for the window to be unlocked. Peter moved to open it but MJ grabbed his arm. "Those two have a lot of explaining to do," she said. "And I want those explanations pretty much now."

"Uh, okay, can I let them in?"

She tilted her head and looked at the two men. They appeared freezing. It was still snowing. "Okay."

"And invite them to Christmas lunch, Peter. Family should be together at this time, even clones should have a family to love them and feed them a home-cooked meal once in a while." Peter thought May seemed quite motherly when she said it.

He opened the window and let the clones in from the cold.

**Author's Note:**

> I have resisted the temptation to change it, here it is, submitted as it was originally, with all it's flaws. I know a little more about the Spider corner of the Marvel Universe these days but it didn't feel right to alter it.


End file.
